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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25324771">Too Bitter to be Sweet</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Birdish/pseuds/Birdish'>Birdish</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Persona 5, Persona 5 Royal</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Cafe Leblanc (Persona 5), Flirting, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gentle Kissing, Good end spoilers (implied but not outright stated), Is this angst, M/M, Mutual Pining, Persona 5 Royal Third Semester Spoilers (sortofkindofimpliedstuffyouknow), is this fluff, now kiss!</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 03:55:03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,577</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25324771</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Birdish/pseuds/Birdish</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Goro Akechi has a specific way he likes his coffee and he wants Akira to have a taste.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Akechi Goro/Amamiya Ren, Akechi Goro/Kurusu Akira, Akechi Goro/Persona 5 Protagonist</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>102</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Too Bitter to be Sweet</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I'm in my Zoom class, daydreaming about coffee, and somehow this fic happened?</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p><strong>11/18</strong> <strong>- Friday</strong></p><p>He pushed the cup away and asked, with narrowed eyes, for it to be bitter. There was a harshness to his words, and in the pause came a moment of clarity. Akechi chuckled, and with a polite flourish, as though attempting to alleviate the abrasiveness of the demand, stated simply: “<em>please</em>, I’m sure you can do it, you’re quite talented.”</p><p>Akira wanted to tell him there was no need for the façade, that they were the only souls within the walls of Le Blanc, and <em>he</em> already knew who Akechi really was. There was no reason for him to be the Second Coming of the Detective Prince when it was just them, he was performing for no one, an audience who was well-aware of what happened behind the scenes.</p><p>“Most people ask me to sweeten it,” Akira set the rejected cup to the side, <em>no point in wasting good coffee</em>, and went to work on making one more attuned to Akechi’s taste.</p><p>“Most people are fools,” Akechi rested his chin against clasped hands. Again, there came the chuckle, a boyish, attractive sound, his act resumed and persisting. “I’m only joking, it makes sense that people would gravitate away from bitterness, it being a sign of poison and all. I don’t hate sweets, but I’m not exactly partial to them, so maybe I’m the foolish one. I’ve just never been a fan of sugar-coating things.”</p><p>Akira nodded, handing him the new brew, and Akechi sipped, for a moment closing his eyes, contemplating the taste.</p><p>“That’s better.”</p><p>Akira placed his apron on the counter and went to the fridge for dinner. Curry sounded, as it always did, good.</p><p>“Happy to help.”</p><p>A part of him didn’t like having his back turned to Akechi, didn’t like the moment of vulnerability where he couldn’t see what the other was doing. But then again, there was a thrill in it.</p><p>“Would you like to taste it?” the question echoed through the empty café.</p><p>Slowly, Akira rose from the fridge. “What?” His attention pulled away from the cold rice he'd been inspecting, went, warily, to his lone customer.</p><p>The young man sat, arms crossed, smiling pleasantly as he motioned to the coffee. He repeated, his gaze as sharp, a calculated glint in his ever-narrowing eyes: “<em>Would you like to taste it</em>?”</p><p>Was it taunting that Akira was picking up on? He grabbed a plate before responding, not so much buying time as seeing how Akechi would react. The Detective watched him, each movement traced by an attentive glance, each shift followed with acute care. The following gaze was enough to bring a swath of warmth through Akira, but with a shake of the head, he pushed it down. He couldn't show weakness in front of Akechi, couldn't waver. </p><p>“I have my own,” He gave an off-handed motioning to the rejected cup before he turned away to prepare his dinner and something within himself deflated.</p><p>“Of course,” Akechi’s gaze finally faltered, and with it, the warmth mellowed. The Detective's attention turned to the television, the recent report on the Phantom Thieves familiar and reliably dull, and again, the deflated feeling panged within Akira's chest. </p><p>Akechi drank the coffee, his brow furrowing as he listened to the report. Akira allowed the television's dull drone to fade into quiet as he ate his curry and sipped at the rejected coffee. The report seemed to drag on, and their silence, even longer. Time passed, cups emptied, the OPEN sign flipped to CLOSED, but even in their news-filled silence Akechi stayed, and Akira, despite it all, didn’t consider telling him to leave.</p><p>It was only time that made the Detective rise, and maybe, only politeness that made Akira walk him to the Ginza line. The distance between them, though their hands frequently brushed against one another, felt larger with each step from Le Blanc.</p><p>They stood in the empty station, waiting for both the train and the other to speak, uncertainty blossoming as the moments passed. The incoming train was announced, the sound of rubbed steel beginning to reverberate, when Akechi, finally, spoke, his words nearly drowned by the shrill whine of the approaching train.</p><p>“If you were to abandon the Phantom Thieves we could be allies.”</p><p>The lights of the incoming train came into view, reflecting off of Akira's glasses. It'd just been hours prior when Akechi had said, with the uptmost conviction: "<em>I'm going to be entirely honest with you: I hate you." </em></p><p>“Allies?” the train pulled to a stop and Akechi stepped inside, Akira’s words hanging between them. “In the Metaverse you made it clear you think of me as a rival.”</p><p>A part of him had forced the words out. A part that still struggled with understanding, and accepting, the root of the evening's disappointment. Akira knew, despite his feigned attempts at redirection, exactly what Akechi meant about hatred and rivals. Knew the line they'd begun to straddle, unintentionally, since their first meeting all those months ago. Because, in Akira's back pocket, as though attesting for the truth of the Detective's words, Akechi's glove waited patiently for their next battle.</p><p>The doors began to close, and Akechi’s smile, small and barely there, was genuine.</p><p>Was real.</p><p>“It’s a thin line Akira.”</p><p>The doors closed and the train pulled away, and once again, they were separated.</p>
<hr/><p><strong>1/15</strong> <strong>– Sunday</strong></p><p>Akechi waited in Kichijoji, umbrella in one hand, Styrofoam cup in the other as his breath fogged before him. Akira’s statement, <em>if you wanted coffee, I could have brought you some</em>, came before he even slowed to a stop.</p><p>Akechi didn’t laugh the way he used to, that fake boyish charm lost to circumstances. Now, he only smirked before gesturing towards one of the many, dark alleys. Akira followed, sheltered from the rain by the umbrella, and neither spoke until they were shrouded in the privacy of darkness.</p><p>“Why did you want to meet without Sumire, she has a right to be involved in this, we don’t have much time.”</p><p>The rain pattered against the umbrella, and Akechi’s voice seemed to lower.</p><p>“You’re right, we don’t have much time.”</p><p>A droplet of water dotted against Akira’s neck, and he stepped further into the umbrella's cover. The smell of the coffee was alluring, and as he stepped closer to the Detective,  their gazes locked, and again, that familiar warmth rose within his stomach.</p><p>“You’re usually so perceptive,” There was something like disappointment in Akechi's tone as he raised the Styrofoam cup, shaking the contents. “It’s about this.”</p><p>“Coffee?”</p><p>Akechi nodded: “Would you like to taste it?” And the stare came again, that inquiring glint, that token of invitation...</p><p>It was like that day back in Le Blanc, before the casino…before the ark…Just as it was then, life was about to change, and whether that meant living in a presumed perfect world or living without…</p><p>Akira didn’t want to think about it. Wouldn't think about it, not while they still had time to decide. He extended his hand towards the cup. Bitter coffee was the least of his worries and the look in Akechi’s eyes…this time, Akira wouldn’t, couldn’t, deny what he saw in their depths.</p><p>The rain's mist was cool against the back of his neck, and in the distance, there came the echo of the temple’s bell. Akira’s hand, for a moment, felt entrapped in a moment, suspended in the air by time as he waited for Akechi to hand him the cup. With eyes that never left the other's, he allowed himself to indulge, <em>just this once</em>, in the beginnings of flirting. He was going to take the cup, and, with a sip, make a small joke about an indirect kiss.</p><p>But Akechi was more forward than that, more apt to the logistics of wordplay. Akira’s hand was taken, the cup dropped and spilling onto the pavement, and fingers, almost desperately, intertwined with his.</p><p>The kiss began softer than Akira expected, and the warmth of a gloved hand against his cheek was more wanted than he’d known. The extended hand, caught and held within Akechi's, was roughly gripped and told of recognition of the pain to come, spoke of a want for a different future. And though the taste of coffee was bitter, there was a sweetness, a warmth, to the whole affair.</p><p>
  <em>Would things have been different if he’d just accepted Akechi’s offer back at Le Blanc? </em>
</p><p>One kiss turned to two, the second to a third, and Akira didn’t think about it anymore.</p>
<hr/><p>
  <strong>3/19 - Sunday</strong>
</p><p>There’d been things he wanted to say, things he wanted to do, conversations, arguments, moments together…</p><p>Sojiro had been the one to ask him to prepare one last cup of coffee; the curry was already bubbling, the rice plated. But the coffee, the coffee was always better fresh.</p><p>“This is too bitter Akira,” Sojiro shook his head. “I thought I’d taught you better than that, and on your last day too...”</p><p>Akira drank it anyway, sipping it slowly, savoring the taste as though it were a proper brew.</p><p>He said his goodbyes to Futaba and Sojiro, and left Le Blanc with Morgana's questions about the sole glove he wore ringing in his ears.</p><p>Sojiro had taught him how to make a cup of coffee, but then again, Akira had had two teachers.</p><p>And over time, with a dash of saltwater in the brew, he’d come to appreciate the honesty of bitterness.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Are we angst,,,or are we fluff,,,my sign is vital, my coffee is cold.<br/>For the mood: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPanVcx0iyc</p></blockquote></div></div>
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